Posted: 3/30/07

HBU students take local & global missions plunge

Two groups of Houston Baptist University students recently stepped out of their comfort zones and into places where they could meet urgent human needs in Christ’s name.

One team spent spring break taking an “urban plunge” into Houston’s Third Ward—one of the city’s most impoverished areas. Another group dug wells, helped offer medical clinics and led Vacation Bible School in Nicaragua.

A village girl in Nicaragua enjoys the pure, clean water a new well provides.

The inner-city missions experience, coordinated with the school’s Center for Student Missions, included visiting an adult day-care center, leading a museum field trip for schoolchildren from the Third Ward and helping at the Harbor Light shelter sponsored by the Salvation Army. An inner-city church provided lodging for the students during their three days of service with nonprofit organizations in the area.

“Initially when the students arrive in these impoverished areas, they arrive with the comprehension and interpretation from what they’ve seen on television—the crimes, the poverty, the struggle. We immediately take them to these neighborhoods they’ve heard about from the news and show them around. Then, they are connected with people who live in these neighborhoods,” said Jason Shaffer, HBU coordinator of spiritual life, community service and missions. “Students’ stereotypes and fears fade as they recognize the humanity in those that society casts aside.”

At the Bering Omega adult day-care center, students played games and decorated Mardi Gras masks with clients.

“I learned that these people come to Omega for friendship and interactio,” student Miranda Tucker said. “After holding a woman’s hand for more than 15 minutes and seeing the impact that had on her, I noticed God’s impact on my heart.”

HBU students spent time at a children’s museum where they interacted with students from the Yellowstone Academy, a private, Christian school designed especially for children from Houston’s Third Ward.

“While in the Third Ward, I felt like I was in a totally different city, yet I realized through those children that we are all interconnected. My goal was to make them smile, and that’s what we did,” HBU student Nagma Meharali said.

“It is amazing how someone’s life can be so different from mine, yet a smile can connect you instantly. It’s those connections that are so precious.”

Brittany Myer noted the inner-city immersion “was a way for me to find out about ways I can help out day-to-day, without having to dish out a lot of money—only love.”

“I never knew so much poverty existed right around us, under the freeway, in abandoned buildings, just a few streets down from people with laptops at Starbucks and overpriced hot dogs at Minute Maid Park,” she noted.

After spring break, the group agreed to continue to meet together for Bible study and additional community service.

Another student group took part in a “mission learning opportunity” in Nicaragua, offered by HBU in collaboration with Memorial Hermann hospital and several businesses, churches and donors in the Houston area.

HBU nursing and pre-med students teamed up with physicians from Memorial Hermann to set up several clinics where they provided medical care to about 300 patients in five days.

Students also held a Vacation Bible School for about 100 children each day, drilled a water well at a Nicaraguan village where 75 families had never had access to clean water and taught hygiene classes.

“A song we repeatedly sang—‘Give Us Clean Hands’—had particular meaning and symbolism for me,” said Celia Tirado, an HBU student. “The men, women and children were able to learn that there are certain things they could do with the water, such as keeping their hands clean, that would help prevent sickness. It was such a simple lesson that will drastically impact their lives.”

Based on reporting by Sara Hawkins of Houston Baptist University

Posted: 3/30/07

Keep ‘dream stealers’ at bay, keynote
speaker urges lay leaders & ministers

By Barbara Bedrick

Texas Baptist Communications

PLAINVIEW—Pastors and lay church leaders should “recognize those things that are dream stealers” and exercise mountain-moving faith, keynote speaker David Mahfouz told participants at Inspire ’07.

The Baptist General Convention of Texas and Caprock Plains Baptist Association sponsored the inaugural Inspire event March 24 at College Heights Baptist Church.

Mahfouz, pastor of First Baptist Church in Port Neches, encouraged nearly 100 pastors, Sunday school teachers and youth and women’s ministry leaders to avoid church members who spew pessimism or negativity about outreach efforts. He called statements such as “Well, some things you just can’t change,” or “You can’t expect the impossible,” troubling impediments to reaching others for Christ.

Keynote speaker David Mahfouz, pastor of First Baptist Church in Port Neches, calls on Texas Baptists attending Inspire ’07 to renew their faith and reach the lost because “millions are in hell because the church has not been urgent in the harvest.”

Mahfouz urged church leaders to get people to move past their “dream stealers” and go share the gospel.

“Millions are in hell because the church has not been urgent in the harvest,” Mahfouz emphasized. “A ripe harvest awaits an urgent church.”

Often, church members get excited about evangelism and begin to share their faith, he noted. But then their evangelistic efforts and enthusiasm falter. They don’t lose the desire suddenly, but gradually they witness less and less.

Turning to a New Testament passage in Matthew 17:14-20, Mahfouz noted Christ’s disciples’ lack of faith when they asked Jesus why they could not heal the boy and Jesus’ reply, “Because you have so little faith.”

“What are we expecting God to do in our churches and through our ministries?” Mahfouz asked. “Are our expectations limited by our unbelief? A world of lost people faces us.”

Encouraging leaders to “draw the lost into the church,” Mahfouz also underscored the need for churches to disciple new Christians after baptizing them.

“Get them involved in meaningful Bible study,” he urged. “And walk with them as new children in Christ.”

If Jesus returned today, Mahfouz believes there would be compassion and love in his eyes, but a great concern over “overripe fields.” Illustrating his point, he referred to the parable where Jesus said, “Look unto the fields. They are white unto harvest. But the reapers, where are they?”

Mahfouz encouraged leaders to pray expecting God to do great things.

“Most Baptists have forgotten what it is to be lost—no peace, no promise of eternity in heaven,” he said.

“Today’s mountain could be tomorrow’s miracle” if Christians just come with a burden, a prayer and an expectation that “God is still in the business of saving people and can use us and our church to do this.”

Posted: 3/30/07

Evangelical support for Iraq
war apparently wavering

By Julie Sullivan

Religion News Service

DAMASCUS, Ore. (RNS)—Suzanne Brownlow shivers on an Oregon highway overpass as a cutting wind whips her sign: “Honk to End the War.” Her weekly demonstration is the latest turn in a fractious journey that has taken the evangelical Christian mother from protesting abortion clinics to protesting the war in Iraq.

“I feel like at least we are doing something,” Mrs. Brownlow said, waving to passersby along with her husband, Dave, and two youngest children.

No polling data conclusively demonstrate that opinion has shifted among the broad national base of conservative evangelicals. But some prominent national evangelical leaders say that debate about—and, in some cases, outright opposition to—the war is breaking out among Christian conservatives whose support was key to President Bush’s election victories.

For those evangelicals, they say, frustration with Republicans’ failure to overturn abortion rights has fueled their skepticism. Others decry the war’s human toll and financial cost, and they’re concerned about any use of torture.

“This war has challenged their confidence in the party,” said Tony Campolo, an evangelical Baptist minister, author and professor of sociology who lectures across the country on social issues. “Add to that that they feel the Republicans have betrayed them on the abortion issue, and you are beginning to see signs of a rebellion.”

The National Association of Evangelicals, which represents 45,000 evangelical churches, recently endorsed an anti-torture statement saying the United States has crossed “boundaries of what is legally and morally permissible” in its treatment of detainees and war prisoners in the fight against terror.

The Brownlows voted for Bush in 2000 because of his conservative views. But a month before the 2003 invasion, the Damascus, Ore., couple began campaigning against his Iraq policies. Dave Brownlow ran for Congress three times, twice on an anti-war ticket for the Constitution Party. Since November, the couple has lobbied lawmakers to bring the troops home.

Recently, they founded Believers Against the War to influence other evangelical Christians.

On a recent Saturday, a motorcyclist, sleek in black leather, spotted the Brownlows’ banners, raised his gloved fist and flipped an obscene gesture. The Brownlows smiled, because many others were honking their support. Then a woman driver slowed and screamed, “Get over it.”

Suzanne Brownlow’s serenity finally broke.

“How can I get over it?” she said. “My son is in Iraq.”

To be sure, many mainline Christian churches and several dozen prominent evangelicals opposed the war from the beginning. Others were ambivalent.

But since 2003, polls have shown that a higher rate of conservative Christians than other Americans favored military action. The National Association of Evangelicals, the same group that condemned torture tactics, even linked evangelical “prayer warriors” to the successful killing of Saddam Hussein’s sons.

Before the war in Iraq, the Brownlows shared the concerns of the religious right.

Suzanne and Dave Brownlow met at a church singles group in Houston 26 years ago. As born-again Christians, they vowed to be a politically active married couple. He picketed Planned Parenthood clinics; she organized for Concerned Women for America.

They had Jared, now 20; Desi, 19; Jace, 15; and Sierra, 12, and moved to Oregon in 1990. They home-schooled their children, were foster parents for three medically fragile youths for Heal the Children and housed eight foreign-exchange students. They campaigned on behalf of Republican candidates. In 2001, Suzanne Brownlow won the Concerned Women for America’s National “Diligence” award.

But by 2002, troubled by the lack of progress on the anti-abortion front and the legality of the president’s war powers, they joined the Constitution Party. Soon after the invasion, Dave Brownlow began writing articles opposing the war.

Meanwhile, Jared Brownlow—long fascinated by military histories, movies and photos of his grandfather, a World War II tail gunner—joined the Army.

The Brownlows say their eldest son has not objected to their anti-war efforts. He’s serving in the Army near Baghdad.

Suzanne Brownlow has found herself increasingly overcome with worry. She has trouble eating and dreams of helicopters landing in her yard. Her husband starts every day clicking onto casualty websites. The couple keep two clocks in their living room, one set for Oregon and one for Iraq.

Although many churchgoers are active against the war, the Brownlows still feel self-conscious sharing their views with their Christian friends. People have told them freedom isn’t free or that they must support the troops.

“As if to say that by allowing our sons and daughters to languish in a vast Iraqi shooting gallery,” Dave Brownlow said, “we are somehow supporting them.”

Posted: 3/30/07

Texas Baptist Forum

God & Allah

Charles Kimball claimed Islam and Christianity worship the same God: “Allah is simply the Arab name for God” (March 5).

Letters are welcomed. Send them to marvknox@baptiststandard.com; 250 words maximum.

“As I thought of what may await me, I felt a feeling of great trust. No one raised in the kind of church environment I grew up in totally leaves behind the acrid smell of fire and brimstone, but I felt an overwhelming sense of trust in God.” Philip Yancey Author, on awaiting news of whether injury sustained in a car crash would threaten his life, before he was released with a neck brace to be worn for 10 weeks (www.philipyancey.com/RNS) “There has been a great deal of talk lately about the role of religion in politics. Yet, if the religious voice were truly a factor, then 45 million Americans—and 8 million children—would not be uninsured.” Marla Feldman Director of the Joint Commission on Social Action of Reform Judaism (RNS) “Saddam Hussein is developing at breakneck speed weapons of mass destruction he plans to use against America and her allies.” Richard Land President of the Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, in 2002 (Baptist Press/ethicsdaily.com) “My justification for the war was not based upon weapons of mass destruction.” Richard Land In 2007 (BeliefNet/ethicsdaily.com)

This is a ploy by Muslims to encourage the widespread use of this falsehood by nonbelievers so the non-Islamic world might be tranquilized into thinking Islam is just another harmless religion, one that might some day be persuaded to convert to Christianity, if we don’t antagonize them by political incorrectness.

A comparison of the characterizations of Allah in the Qur’an and Jehovah God in the Bible will reveal vastly different beings the most casual eye can easily detect. 

The Qur’an in Surah 8:12-14: “Remember your Lord inspired the angels; ‘I am with you; give firmness to Believers; I will instill terror into the hearts of the Unbelievers; you smite above their necks and smite all the finger-tips off them.’  This because they contended against Allah and His Messenger; if any contended against Allah and His Messenger, Allah is strict in punishment.”

Thousands of Christians and Jews have been beheaded for refusing to affirm Allah and Jehovah God are the same, and thousands more have publicly affirmed it without an inner belief.

William B. Crittenden

Houston

If you are a Christian who speaks Arabic, you pray to Allah. A Christian who speaks Spanish prays to Dios. If German, you pray to Gott.

However you pronounce it, you are praying to the same God, the one who commanded us to love our neighbor as we love ourself.

Religion may not be the best reason for feeling superior to others, but it’s a good excuse.

Robert Flynn

San Antonio

Baugh: Gentle, determined

In the 1980s, I hosted an early meeting of Laity for the Baptist Faith and Message, through which influential Texas Baptist laymen sounded warnings of the fundamentalist takeover of the Southern Baptist Convention. This precursor to Texas Baptist Committed was led by John Baugh, Dewey Presley, Maston Courtney and others.

The greatest personal benefit to my involvement, other than the cause that united us, was a lasting friendship with Mr. Baugh. I have never known a more gracious man. My files contain personal letters from him, which are among my most treasured professional papers. Grace and integrity were hallmarks of this gentle, but determined, man.

I have been privileged to know a number of people of substantial means. But only a few of them understood the stewardship of what they possessed. Mr. Baugh was just such a person.

My fear is that while such rare persons are passing from the scene, few if any can or will succeed them. Since he and his dear Eula Mae chose to invest in the eternal, I am grateful his influence and ministry will continue among us until the Lord’s return.

Paul Kenley

Lampasas

Baptist convocation

I have just finished reading Charles Wade’s column requesting prayer for two events coming up in Baptist life (March 19).

While both deserve prayerful consideration, the latter will require more on our part if anything good can come out of it. I am referring to the convocation on the New Baptist Covenant in Atlanta next year.

I have spoken to Mr. Wade about the dangers of this meeting being politicized, since it has been organized by Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, and we will be in the middle of a presidential campaign. He gave me his word that it will not be political, although there are representatives of both political parties present.

The work of following Jesus’ agenda should be our first consideration.

He also referred to a pastors’ conference where Clinton expressed sorrow and repentance for how he had harmed the country. The American people did not hear that message nor one similar.

Betty Westbrook

Plano

‘Fixed’ slot machines

Regarding “Casino proposal predicted to roll” (March 19): The first issue to be asked in the gambling debate—setting aside whether or not slot machines should be allowed—is whether reel slot machines even conform to proper gambling standards.

Roger Horbay, the Canadian gaming machine expert, and I have explored the internal workings of reel gaming machines, and we are dismayed at what we have found.

We have written a paper, “Unbalanced Reel Gaming Machines,” which exposes a hidden asymmetry in the design of the reels. The paper explains clearly and in detail the uncomfortable parallels between the internal design of reel gaming machines and cheating mechanisms in casino and carnival games. This paper has formed the basis of complaints to federal authorities in Canada, the United States and Australia.

The paper may be downloaded from the CitizenLink website.

Put bluntly, the machines incorporate a deceptive technique similar to the gaffed carnival milk bottle or cat rack games. They have a “devilishly clever” internal design, which gives near misses and limits winning combinations. These machines are very dangerous for the player and, in Victoria, Australia, account for at least 80 percent of the problem gambling. 

Tim Falkiner

Melbourne, Victoria

Australia

What do you think? The Baptist Standard values letters to the editor, for they reflect Baptists’ affirmation of the priesthood of believers. Send letters to Editor Marv Knox by mail: P.O. Box 660267, Dallas 75266-0267; or by e-mail: marvknox@baptiststandard.com. Letters are limited to 250 words.

Posted: 3/30/07

On the Move

• Amanda Bludworth has resigned as minister of youth at Salt Creek Church in Brownwood.

• Louis Brewer has resigned as pastor of College View Church in Abilene.

• Herb Bullock to Pleasant Hill Church in Austin as pastor from High Pointe Church in Austin, where he was senior citizen’s pastor.

• Seth Carnes has resigned as pastor of students at Southside Church in Brownwood.

• Amy Chestnut to First Church in Cleburne as minister of preschool/missions/outreach.

• Denver Dugle to New Prospect Church in Nemo as pastor.

• Sean Ferry has resigned as youth pastor at First Church in Devine.

• Drew Finch has resigned as minister of youth at First Church in Bangs.

• Clyde Larrabee to First Church in Navasota as pastor.

• Roy Norman to Westwood Church in Waco as minister of music.

• Danny Rogers has resigned as pastor of Living Proof Church in Grandview.

• David Sandez to Iglesia Nuevo Esperanza in Longview as pastor.

• Chad Shaw to First Church in Cisco as youth minister.

• Billy Simpson has resigned as pastor of Moro Church in Ovalo.

• David Skinner has resigned as minister of youth at First Church in Pearsall.

• Tim Stary to Southside Church in Brownwood as interim student pastor.

• Kris Thompson to First Church in Hallettsville as youth minister from Jones Chapel Church in Early.

• David Warren to Elmcrest Church in Abilene as pastor from Field Street Church in Cleburne, where he was minister to students.

Posted: 3/30/07

More Americans exercise choice in religion

By Andrea Useem

Religion News Service

WASHINGTON (RNS)—When Aurora Turk was growing up in Mexico City, being Catholic was a given.

“It was taught to me by the nuns at school and my mother at home,” she recalled. “My whole world was Catholic.”

But Turk’s adult life has been marked by religious exploration. Married to a Brooklyn-born Jew, the 38-year-old mother now follows the teachings of an Indian spiritual teacher.

While Turk’s story seems unique, her experience of switching religious identities is common for many Americans. According to experts who study the phenomenon, spiritual seekers are exercising their freedom of choice more than ever before.

Sixteen percent of Americans have switched their religious identities at some point in their lives, according to the 2001 American Religious Identification Survey, one of the largest studies of its kind.

“People are making more choices in everything, from lifestyle to sexual identity. It’s not surprising if they are making more choices in religion,” said Peter Berger, professor of sociology and theology at Boston University.

In other words, the era when religion was determined solely by accident of birth is over, he said.

Barry Kosmin, co-author of the 2006 book Religion in a Free Market: Religious and Non-Religious Americans, which is based on the 2001 survey data, predicted more switching is to be expected.

“Family and ethnic loyalties—the old glue that maintained inter-generational religious identification—has weakened,” he said. In addition to moving more frequently, Americans also are more likely to be “searching” for religious truth, often outside their own traditions, wrote Kosmin, who directs the Institute for the Study of Secularism in Society and Culture at Trinity College in Hartford, Conn.

The 2001 study showed clear winners and losers in the competition to attract and retain members: Twice as many Americans left Catholicism as joined the faith, while evangelical Chris-tianity registered a net gain, with more than three times as many people joining than leaving.

The biggest change, however, was registered among Americans who said they had no religious identity at all, increasing from 8 percent of the U.S. population in 1990 to 14 percent in 2001.

While religious switching may bring satisfaction to individual seekers, the phenomenon can be unnerving for religious leaders, who are vying for “customers” ever more aware of new options, Kosmin said.

“We have a supply-side religious market with more competing firms each year,” he noted. Megachurches are successful in part because they actively reach out to “potential” members, of which there are many in high-mobility suburbs and exurbs, Kosmin wrote.

But success in attracting new members doesn’t necessarily translate into success at keeping them, reported Daniel Olson, a sociologist at Indiana University South Bend who studies religious competition.

The 2001 survey found, for example, that while the Mormons welcomed a relatively large number of converts, an equal number left the faith. Jehovah’s Witnesses and Buddhists displayed similarly high levels of turnover.

Surprisingly, smaller religious groups are better at recruiting new members, Olson said. Most switching happens through social relationships, like marriage and friendship, and members of a small religious group are more likely to have lots of relationships with nonmembers, whom they are able to pull into the faith.

Posted: 3/30/07

Students find missions calling through BSM

By John Hall

Texas Baptist Communications

NACOGDOCHES—When Ashlee Stricklin was a high school senior, Stephen F. Austin State University barely made the list of colleges she considered attending. But when she visited, she found God calling her to the campus.

Stephen F. Austin State University pray during Beach Reach at South Padre Island. Students Minister at Spring Break • Beach Reach volunteers immersed in missions service • Baylor fraternity brothers serve God in the Ozarks • DBU students build homes in South Carolina & South Dakota • HBU students take local & global missions plunge • ETBU nursing students put training into practice in Mexico • Students find missions calling through BSM • More than a day at the beach

She stopped by the school’s Baptist Student Ministries, where a speaker told students God brought each one of them to the BSM that night for a reason.

Stricklin sensed the speaker was addressing her directly.

“I just really felt at that moment that this is where God wants me to be,” said Stricklin, a member of South Garland Baptist Church in Garland.

Stricklin isn’t alone in her experience. Several students who serve through the BSM said they came to SFA in part because of the BSM’s reputation for being missions-minded. The student ministry is known for encouraging and empowering young adults to serve in the community and around the world.

Students go on mission trips during spring break, the Christmas holidays and during the summer. In between trips, they are serving in homeless shelters and nursing homes in the community.

Missions is integrated into everything the school’s BSM does—small groups, Bible study, worship and fellowship, according to BSM Director Chris Sammons.

“For a number of years now, even before I came three years ago, there was a strong base of missions,” he said.

“It’s kind of become part of our culture. When students come in here as freshmen, one of the first things they hear is how God has a heart for the nations and how he wants them to be a part of that.

SFA students prayerwalk in Boston during spring break.

“It’s a constant thing we talk about, because for us, missions is not something someone else does; it’s something God calls everyone to do.”

Deborah Perry, who served in Boston during spring break, said the emphasis on missions is attractive to her because she feels called to mission work. She doesn’t know what form that calling will take in her life, but the variety of missions opportunities offered through the BSM is helping her clarify that call.

“I’m just trying to see where I’m supposed to be,” she said.

Mission trips give students a bigger picture of how God is working, Sammons said. They see how he cares for people around the globe. They learn new ways of serving him. And that changes students’ spiritual journeys.

“We believe that our relationship with the Lord is ultimately about the transformation of life,” he said.

“We are convinced that what God does on mission trips is transform people from the inside out.”

Posted: 3/30/07

Two generations of Wiesers
serve as student missionaries

By Ken Camp

Managing Editor

ALVIN—The Wieser family sees student missionary service as more than a family tradition. For two generations, they believe it’s been God’s instrument for confirming a calling to Christian service.

Ken and Judy Wieser both became involved in missions through what was then called the Baptist Student Union at Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches. Their three children—Keith, Jana and Kris—not only followed their parents’ lead in their college choice, but also each served terms as student missionaries.

“They made their own choices about where God was leading them,” said Wieser, associate pastor at Heights Baptist Church in Alvin. “Of course, growing up, they did hear stories from us about our experience at SFA, and they knew the emphasis we place on missions.”

Ironically, Wieser applied for a summer missionary position only because a friend insisted he do it. “I didn’t think I was summer missions material,” he said. “I didn’t think I was good enough or talented enough.”

Nonetheless, Wieser spent the summer of 1971 in a coffee house ministry on Padre Island—sharing the gospel one-to-one during the daytime and spending his evenings strumming a guitar and singing at the makeshift coffee house, set up in a tent near the beach.

“It opened my eyes to the potential God put into me,” he said. “I learned God can use ordinary people. You can be useful in ministry if you make yourself available to God.”

Mrs. Wieser served in summer missions with a drama team that performed in camps, churches and state parks around the state.

Independent experiences as student missionaries influenced the Wiesers’ shared life together after they married, she added. “From that time on, missions became an important part of our lives as a married couple. Our children participated in mission organizations as children and went on mission trips as they became teenagers,” she said.

Perhaps not surprisingly, when all three children went to school at Stephen F. Austin State University, they became involved with the Baptist Student Ministry. And each served as a student missionary—Keith to Estonia, Jana to Southeast Asia and later as a missions mobilizer in the BGCT collegiate ministry office and Kris to Germany and later as semester missionary in the Northeast on several college campuses.

The year after Keith served in Estonia, one of his college friends, Paige Dickerson, served a missions term there. They found out they had more than that experience and a passion for missions in common, and Keith and Paige married. They now serve as USC-2 missionaries with the Southern Baptist North American Mission Board in collegiate ministry in the Northwest. He is Baptist campus minister at Washington State University, and she is Northwest Collegiate Missions Associate.

Likewise, Kris felt a calling to collegiate ministry, and he currently is studying at Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary.

“Ken and I are eternally grateful for to God for what he has done in our lives and in the lives of our children,” Mrs. Wieser said.

Posted: 3/30/07

At 40 years, no break
for Texas Baptist Men

By Barbara Bedrick

Texas Baptist Communications

DALLAS—Forty years of labor ought to entitle a worker to a break. In the Old Testament, even Noah got one. But don’t tell that to Texas Baptist Men volunteers. They are nailing a church back together again in Sabine Pass.

Texas Baptist Men, a missions organization affiliated with the Baptist General Convention of Texas, takes no spring break. Instead, its volunteers work to help people who lost their church building to Hurricane Rita.

TBM volunteers are rebuilding the Sabine Pass Christian Fellowship facility—split in half by Hurricane Rita—from its foundation.

Running the drill press at the Texas Baptist Men Builders furniture shop in Lubbock is 93-year-old Ed Smith of Faith Chapel Baptist Church in Brownfield.

Constructing buildings and rebuilding lives is only one TBM ministry. Others include chainsaw teams, chefs on wheels, pilots who airlift supplies, lay evangelists who share the gospel, men who teach boys Christian principles in Royal Ambassadors and disaster relief teams who comfort in critical times.

“These volunteers are not just workers who do (ministry), but men who have a real walk with Christ,” said TBM Executive Director Leo Smith.

Smith, who has served as the organization’s executive director the past four years, has been involved in TBM’s ministries since it began in 1967.

Since then, volunteers have provided millions of hot meals to disaster victims, delivered warm blankets to more than 15,000 people, built new homes and churches for hundreds of people and congregations, offered spiritual counsel to thousands of victims, delivered hundreds of gallons of safe drinking water and comforted nearly 1 million victims.

Watch Bob Dixon’s remarks on TBM’s 40th anniversary.

They have coordinated airlifts internationally, delivering medical supplies, diapers, antibiotics and more than 100,000 doses of medicine.

When Delta Flight 191 crashed in Dallas in 1988, TBM’s disaster relief unit was one of the first to respond. When terrorists attacked New York City on Sept. 11, 2001, the group’s disaster relief workers and chaplains arrived on the scene quickly.

As the organization commemorates it 40th anniversary this year, Smith reminisces about the journey, but he also envisions the future.

With three 18-wheel mobile disaster relief units, including one that can allow workers to prepare more than 40,000 meals a day, Smith believes TBM is better positioned today than ever to reach people in crisis.

TBM’s move from the Baptist Building to its own facility in 2000 marked a milestone, he noted. Today, the group sponsors 17 ministries that work together at the Robert E. Dixon Mission Equipping Center. The disaster relief units, feeding units, childcare unit and water purification units, along with other equipment, staff, volunteers, supplies and a logistical command post, are now in one centralized location.

“For 38 years, we patched old trucks and old equipment,” Smith said. “But in the past year, God has allowed us to replace every piece with brand-new equipment. God has blessed TBM with half a million dollars worth of equipment to feed in excess of 40,000 meals a day.”

Another key event in recent years has been the expansion of the TBM staff by adding a Hispanic consultant and a resource development person who directs raising funds for the organization’s ministries.

This year, Smith is calling for a renewed focus on helping churches minister to men, grow them and mentor them. He believes ministries to men in churches are falling by the wayside.

“We’ve got to find ways to help men feel significant—to be spiritual fathers, husbands and church members,” Smith said.

By reaching out to men who may be hurting, TBM leaders and volunteers can help lead them into a heartfelt relationship with God, he added.

“We want to help them walk hand-in-hand with God,” Smith stressed. “That loving relationship with him will, in turn, thrust men into a lifestyle of missions and ministry.”

Hurricane Beulah’s arrival in 1967 in the Rio Grande Valley prompted the “birth of Texas Baptist Siamese twins— disaster relief and River Ministry,” said Bob Dixon, TBM executive director from 1970 to 1998. Dixon recalled he was teaching boys the basics of camping and Christian values when the BGCT state missions director called him to go to the Valley.

Beulah, a powerful Category 5 hurricane, spawned 115 twisters across Texas, caused more than $1 billion in damages and killed 58 people. TBM volunteers delivered hope, encouragement, food and the gospel.

The response to Beulah was the first Baptist disaster relief effort of its kind in the country. It blazed a trail for future states as Baptists from across the country soon patterned programs after Texas Baptists. When 7,000 people lost their lives in a Mexico City earthquake 22 years ago, TBM volunteers led the multi-state Southern Baptist response. They served 150,000 meals.

Since 1967, TBM volunteers have responded to the call of victims left devastated from disasters throughout Texas, across the United States and—increasingly—around the world.

“If you are faithful over the small things, God gives you greater ministries,” Dixon noted. “That’s what happened with disaster relief.”

TBM’s first international disaster relief mission came in 1973, after an earthquake rocked Nicaragua. A year later, volunteers took the mobile disaster relief unit to Central America when Hurricane Fifi hit. The group’s leaders recall leading several young men to faith in Christ. Volunteers served more than 500,000 meals after an earthquake rocked Los Angeles in 1994.

One of TBM’s largest international missions came in 2004 and 2005 after a series of tsunamis hit Sri Lanka. The disaster affected more than 1 million lives.

Rebuilding lives has not always stemmed from tragedy. Through the Retiree Builders ministry, volunteers built the 18,000-square-foot, $1 million Canadian Southern Baptist Seminary. They also constructed a Hospitality House for families of inmates in 24 hours and then came back later to build a conference center and apartments in Huntsville.

After a tornado ripped through the tiny West Texas town of Saragosa, killing more than 30 people and destroying most of the homes, retiree builders stepped in.

“We built the whole town of Saragosa back over Labor Day weekend,” Dixon remembered. “Twenty-three houses were destroyed. Ten people came to know Christ.”

Prayers permeate all the group’s missions but particularly were important when the Pentagon called in 1991 and asked for blankets for Kurds in Iraq, Dixon recalled. The same year, Texas Baptists became the first evangelical Christians to participate in a disaster relief mission in Iran since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Pointing to the significance of 40 years in the Bible, Smith noted in “every 40-year block of time, there was a preparation for something greater to come… an opportunity. I believe that God has positioned Texas Baptist Men for greater things to come.”

Posted: 3/30/07

Texas Tidbits

Scholarship fund benefits HPU student workers. The Landon Carter and Edna Fay Johnson Work Scholarship Fund has been established at Howard Payne University to pay students for their on-campus work. The fund honors the memories of the Johnsons, members of First Baptist Church in Ponca City, Okla. Mrs. Johnson graduated from Howard Payne and taught math at the school nine years.

The Ancient Trasures of the Holy Land exhibit features an ossuary (casket) that many archaeologists think contained the bones of Simon of Cyrenia.

Holy Land relics come to Texas. An exhibit of Holy Land relics—believed to be the largest ever to tour the United States—is on display at Dallas Fair Park through July 28. The 27,000-square-foot exhibits includes more than 350 relics and rare sacred texts, including many never before seen outside of Jerusalem.The display include portions of the Leviticus and Deuteronomy Dead Sea Scrolls; the ossuary (bone box) archeologists believe held the remains of Simon the Cyrene, who carried the cross for Jesus; a 2,000-year-old sandal found at Masada; Egyptian artifacts, some over 5,000 years old; ancient weapons, including bronze spear heads, battle axes and a sword dating as early as 2200 B.C.

Maston lectures slated at Logsdon. Allen Verhey of Duke University is the featured speaker for the T.B. Maston Christian ethics lectures April 2 and 3 at Hardin-Simmons University’s Logsdon School of Theology. Topics include “Reading Scripture and Caring at the End of Life” and “Praying and Caring at the End of Life.” The lectures are free and open to the public.

Horner Scholarship to benefit DBU international students. Andy and Joan Horner, founders of Irving-based Premier Designs and members of First Baptist Church in Dallas, donated over $200,000 to establish an endowed scholarship benefiting international students at Dallas Baptist University. The Joan Horner International Scholarship fund will partner with churches to provide matching scholarships for international students. Since 1988, the DBU international student population has grown from 12 to 404 students in the fall 2006 semester, representing 53 countries.

Foundation sets grant schedule. Baptist Health Foundation of San Antonio is accepting letters of inquiry for 2007 responsive grants from $25,000 to $250,000 and grant applications for mini-grants of less than $5,000 from not-for-profit organizations helping meet community health needs in the foundation’s eight-county service area—Atascosa, Bandera, Bexar, Comal, Guadalupe, Kendall, Medina and Wilson. Since the foundation began making grants in 2005, more than $7.6 million have been awarded, including more than $3.88 million last year. Responsive grant letters of inquiry should provide information about the organization, its mission and the nature of the request. The deadline for submitting responsive grant letters of inquiry is May 25. Mini-grants are designed to support and encourage grassroots health activities primarily through local churches and community organizations with small operating budgets. The deadline for mini-grant proposals is June 15. For more information, call Eusebio Diaz at (210) 735-9009 or visit www.bhfsa.org.

Correction: A photo cutline on page 10 of the March 19 Standard incorrectly identified one individual as Carolyn McEntyre. The person pictured is Susan Bush from First Baptist Church in Athens.

Posted: 3/30/07

TOGETHER:
Jesus is the way, the truth & the life

A speech by Charles Kimball at this year’s Christian Life Conference has generated a lot of discussion. Kimball, a professor at Wake Forest University in North Carolina, said Christians and Muslims “are talking about the same God.”

“There is really not much ambiguity about this. Allah is simply the Arabic word for God,” Kimball said. “The name for God in Islam, in Arabic, is Allah. This is not another god. This is the same God that Jews and Christians are talking about.”

Executive Director BGCT Executive Board

This language is a bit jarring. It’s not how we Baptists normally talk. Kimball was referring to the fact Christians and Muslims, as well as Jews, trace their theological heritage to the God of Abraham. He also was stating the linguistic fact that Middle Eastern Christians who speak Arabic use the word “Allah” (God) in prayers, Scripture reading and worship.

To say that the God of Christians, Jews and Muslims is the same God is a literary and historical understanding of the common origins we have in the story of Abraham. But the reality of Jesus Christ as God incarnate means that any view of God that does not look through the eyes of Jesus is going to be flawed and inadequate to provide salvation.

The 1963 Baptist Faith & Message statement, which is the theological statement of the Baptist General Convention of Texas, is very clear about our understanding of the nature of God and about his Son, Jesus. The statement is too lengthy to quote here in its entirety, but I want to pull out a few key statements. First, from the general statement about God:

“There is one and only one living and true God. He is an intelligent, spiritual, and personal Being, the Creator, Redeemer, Preserver and Ruler of the universe. God is infinite in holiness and all other perfections. To him we owe the highest love, reverence and obedience. The eternal God reveals himself to us as Father, Son and Holy Spirit, with distinct personal attributes, but without division of nature, essence or being.”

The Baptist Faith & Message then says this about our Lord Jesus:

“Christ is the eternal Son of God. In His incarnation as Jesus Christ, he was conceived of the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary. … He honored the divine law by his personal obedience, and in his death on the cross, he made provision for the redemption of men from sin. He was raised from the dead with a glorified body and appeared to his disciples as the person who was with them before his crucifixion. He ascended into heaven and is now exalted at the right hand of God where he is the One Mediator, partaking of the nature of God and of man, and in whose Person is effected the reconciliation between God and man. …”

The full statement is available on the BGCT website.

We Texas Baptists affirm that Jesus is the way, the truth and the life, and that no one comes to the Father except through him (John 14:6).

“Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). The call for all people to know the love of God in and through Jesus Christ is the good news we share.

Jesus loves us all.

Charles Wade is executive director of the Baptist General Convention of Texas Executive Board.

Posted: 3/30/07

More than a day at the beach

By Jennifer Sicking

University of Mary Hardin-Baylor

BELTON—Spring break was more than just a day or two at the beach for 40 University of Mary Hardin-Baylor students this year.

They and three university staff members journeyed to South Padre Island to make an impact in lives of fellow students as part of Beach Reach, an annual evangelistic outreach.

“I mainly go to show Christ’s love,” said Robert Copeland, a senior from Huffman. He believes students caught up in the “party scene” are “hurt and crying out in a different way.”

His message to them is simple. “I tell them that no matter what they do, Christ still loves them,” he said.

Ashley Ashmore, a senior from Thrall, said a calling to “love on people” compelled her to return to South Padre for a third year of ministry.

“So many times non-Christians feel like the church tries to shove Jesus down their throat. This is not just to tell them about Jesus but to show them Jesus,” she said.

Showing them Jesus includes giving them van rides, serving pancakes or passing out packets of sunblock.

During van rides, Ashmore said girls often would speak of coming to the island to meet a guy to marry.

“They get emotional and say, ‘Why won’t anybody love me?’” she said.

To one girl who spoke about men always leaving her, Ashmore told her about why she followed Jesus.

“His promises will never be broken,” she said.

Such conversations and actions are the reason Baptist Student Mission Director Shawn Shannon has taken the university’s students to the Beach Reach the past four years.

“They have a chance to give their lives away at a time and place where such intervention makes quite a difference,” she said.

Sometimes that difference can be physical, as well as spiritual.

As Copeland and another UMHB Campus Missionary Bear Garza were patrolling in the van to pickup students, they encountered a driver passed out at the wheel of his car at a busy intersection’s stop sign.

When they finally were able to wake him, they loaded him into the van to take him to his house.

“When you pass out your body goes limp,” Copeland said. “But his leg did not, it stayed pushing on the brake so he didn’t go into the intersection and his car get T-boned. This man had just graduated from college, and God gave him a second chance. It was just a complete miracle to me.”